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CronoDAS comments on What have you recently tried, and failed at? - Less Wrong
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Comments (130)
Ouch.
(Would it be inappropriate to ask what that website is?)
I don't want this man finding out he has this effect me.
It's just a blog where one man writes his opinions. I'm not exactly sure why his blog in particular makes me so angry. Maybe it's because he wrote a couple of posts that reminded me of a traumatizing experience when I was a kid. Maybe his unique writing style. Maybe it's just an accident. But for whatever reason, when I read this man's blog, I get incredibly angry. No other blog (or anything else) affects me this way.
Sometimes when I'm reading his blog and I get angry at him, I imagine punching him. Then I punch myself. Then my brain releases the "someone punched you!" chemicals and I get even angrier. A positive feedback loop until I'm bloody and exhausted.
It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. When I was a teenager I was punching myself practically every day, only instead of getting mad at a blogger I was mad at my parents. I'm not mad at my parents anymore and I just made a half a year without punching myself, so hopefully this chapter will be over soon.
O_O
I'd say that it seems like the problem is that getting angry somehow causes you to hit yourself (rather than that various things are making you angry), but it seems sufficiently obvious that my saying it wouldn't make any difference...
It's not "various things" that trigger me. At this point in my life, it's exclusively his blog/twitter account.
I'll be the first to admit that my reaction to his blog is ridiculously out of proportion. Yes, his opinions are asinine, but a lot of people say asinine things and they don't worked up like he does.
I guess I could try and break the connection between reading his blog and hitting myself, but I think it would be easier to just stop reading the blog altogether. It doesn't enlighten me and it just makes me angry. Almost any other site would be a better use of my time.
Well, if it's just this one site, then you might as well just avoid the site. But simply getting very angry, in general, isn't something that one should need to avoid doing for fear of hitting oneself. Sometimes there are very good reasons to be angry. (Ask Ned Flanders!)
This may have occurred to you, but it seems too obvious not to suggest - do stress release devices help at all? A punching bag seems to me to be a good idea.
I tried it for while but could never be bothered to do it consistently. Maybe I should try again.
I was thinking more that whenever you got the urge to hit yourself, you could just hit the punching bag instead.
not hitting anything > hitting a punching bag > hitting a human
The danger of the "punching bag therapy" applied uncritically is teaching you that when you feel angry, the correct reaction is to hit something. So if possible, self-control is the first choice. Only if not possible (or not probable), hitting the bag is the safer option.
That's certainly true (related). But hitting a punching bag is orders of magnitude better than hitting yourself.
I'm really curious who it is now. Will you tell in PM?
I'll think about it.